Saturday, 10 August 2013

The picture swam out of nothing

This week
Profile sent me a couple of advance copies of Armchair Nation, which is out on
5 September. Too late to include it in the book, but I came across this nice description
of a TV watcher in Elizabeth Taylor’s 1964 novel The Soul of Kindness:

'He sat down
opposite it, waiting for it to warm up, his hands clasped across his stomach,
his face wearing a patient expression. That nuisance cat Flore had given him
came to rub against his legs but he pushed it aside. He was all ready to pass
judgment. The picture suddenly swam out of nothing, following the sound. A quiz
programme. Two rows of people facing one another. A pompous, schoool-masterly
man asking the question. Those answers that Percy knew he spoke out loudly and
promptly; when he was at a loss, he pretended (as if he were not alone) that he
had not quite caught the question, or was too busy blowing his nose to make his
reply, or had to go to help himself to whisky.’

About Me

I am a writer and academic, based at Liverpool John Moores University. I have written five books, the most recent of which are Queuing for Beginners (2007), a cultural history of daily habits since the war, inspired in part by the Mass-Observation surveys of the 1930s and 1940s, and On Roads: A Hidden History (2009). As well as publishing articles in obscure academic journals, I write for the Guardian, the New Statesman, the Financial Times and other publications. I am a cultural historian focusing on the very recent past, with a particular interest in the everyday. To email me, click on 'view my complete profile' below. You can follow me on Twitter at
twitter.com/joemoransblog